Around auto racing: Web donations help Wise enter Cup race

Saturday

May 3, 2014 at 12:01 AMMay 3, 2014 at 10:03 AM

Josh Wise made it to Talladega Superspeedway the new-fashioned way. A movement started on the online site Reddit by a 16-year-old fan using the digital currency Dogecoin generated a sponsorship for Wise's No. 98 Ford Fusion in Sunday's Aaron's 499 Sprint Cup race at the Alabama track.

Josh Wise made it to Talladega Superspeedway the new-fashioned way.

A movement started on the online site Reddit by a 16-year-old fan using the digital currency Dogecoin generated a sponsorship for Wise’s No. 98 Ford Fusion in Sunday’s Aaron’s 499 Sprint Cup race at the Alabama track.

Wise learned about the effort through another social media site, Twitter.

“At that time I didn’t really know what Dogecoin was,” Wise said yesterday. “I had heard of Reddit, but I hadn’t been on there much. It was easy to kind of dismiss it at first because it was like, ‘Well yeah, they might have like 10 or 15 people want to help us raise sponsorship, but I doubt they’re going to be able to raise the full amount to sponsor us.’

“Five or six days later, they had met the goal of $55,000 to sponsor us and we had a sponsor for Talladega. It was pretty cool.”

Teen Denis Pavel of Niles, Ill., had noticed Wise’s car having a strong run at Bristol before finishing 23rd. He thought of past fundraisers he’d seen on Reddit, and helped pave Wise’s road to Talladega. Phil Parsons Racing also let Reddit users vote on a paint scheme for Wise’s car.

“It’s been so cool because having a crowd-funded car, we had a lot of excited people that contributed,” Wise said.

Hornish on pole for Nationwide race

Sam Hornish Jr. will start on the pole today after leading a Joe Gibbs Racing sweep in qualifying for the Aaron’s 312 Nationwide Series race at Talladega.

Elliott Sadler qualified second and Darrell Wallace Jr. third in the JGR sweep.

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